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Sunday, July 14, 2013

Pastuerization is the process of heating milk in order to kill pathogens and other disease causing bacteria. The US Food and Drug Administration strongly recommends pastuerization and on a State level, Texas requires that dairy is pastuerized as legislators have decided the health risk is not worth the potential benefits.

Raw milk proponents believe that pastuerization kills the good properties in dairy and therefore milk is better in its raw and natural form. They also argue that non-pastuerized dairy only affects the very young and the very old and most people are not susceptable to these diseases, however, research shows that diseases such as salmonella are found in all ages and segments of the population. Clearly, a healthy person is less likely to become terminally ill from a disease causing pathogen but potential stomach pain and nasaua are still not really worth it to many consumers.

White Mountain Foods is all for natural and organic and we do support Non-GMO and USDA Certified Organic, however, this should be balanced with disease prevention and control. We believe that foods are best in their natural form and pastuerization does not change the consistancy while taste discrepancies are debatable and based on personal preference.

The second argument from raw milk proponents is that there are European cheeses such as Brie and Camombert that are un-pastuerized in which people have been eating for decades. First of all, the FDA regulation is no raw milk products sold in the US with the exception of cheese that is aged for over sixty days which will work in the same fashion as pastuerization, killing off the disease causing pathogens.

If you are concerned with pastuerization or would like to research it further, please visit the FDA website below.